The Japanese group arranging a visit next month by former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) on Tuesday dismissed speculation that Lee would be able to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Reporters raised the question at a press conference in Tokyo held by Shiro Odamura, head of the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and Masataka Yuhra, another of the group’s officials, who said they had not heard of any proposals for such a meeting.
The 91-year-old Lee wants to pay respects to his brother, who died fighting for Japan in World War II when Taiwan was a Japanese colony, and was enshrined at Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, they said.
Lee paid a visit to the shrine, which honors Japanese war dead, including some convicted war criminals, during a trip to Tokyo in 2007, prompting complaints from China.
Outlining, Lee’s itinerary, Odamura and Yuhra said he is to hold a press conference after arriving at Kansai International Airport in Osaka on Sept. 19.
He is scheduled to deliver a speech in Osaka on Sept. 20 and then head to Tokyo the following day for another speech and a tour of renewable energy facilities, they said, adding that he will travel to Hokkaido on Sept. 23, where he is to visit livestock breeding and dairy businesses before returning home on Sept. 25.
Lee will be accompanied by his wife, Tseng Wen-hui (曾文惠), their two daughters, his doctor and assistants from the Lee Teng-hui Foundation, they said.
As for the content of Lee’s speeches, Odamura said they will focus on a call for Tokyo to set up a Japanese version of the US’ Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which defines non-diplomatic relations between the US and the “people on Taiwan.”
Yuhra said that in an article for the Japanese monthly Voice 6, Lee urged the Abe government to pay attention to three issues: the implementation of a Taiwan-Japan fisheries agreement, the transfer of state-of-the-art cancer treatment technologies to Taiwan and the formation of a Japanese version of TRA.
Lee last visited Japan in September 2009.
Next month’s trip will be his sixth to Japan since he stepped down as president in May 2000.
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